How Pope Francis changed the Catholic church, and what happens next – podcast

Just hours after wishing the world a happy Easter, the 267th head of the Roman Catholic church passed away. What was his legacy and who will take his place? Catherine Pepinster reports

Pope Francis was working until the end. On Easter Sunday, the 88-year-old head of the Catholic church offered an Easter greeting to the crowds in St Peter’s Square who had gathered for mass. By the next morning, after months battling pneumonia and bronchitis, he had passed away.

From the beginning, the first Latin American pope wanted his papacy to be different. Catherine Pepinster, the former editor of the Tablet, says one of his first notable actions was to go to a prison, rather than a church, to wash people’s feet in the traditional Maundy Thursday rite. It was typical of a pontiff who refused many of the luxuries of his predecessors – from giving up an apartment in the papal palace to only wearing simple leather shoes.